I sometimes wonder if the FDA is getting paid off to let these chemicals into the food market, so that the pharmaceutical lobby will have a disease to treat (and charge us for a 'branded' medication) down the line. I wouldn't put it past them.

Aaaack my eyes are hurting and I want to argue with you Wynnie, but I like you so I'm going to bite my tongue. But I have to warn you - I work for the pharma industry. :D

No, I am not ashamed that I have a major crush on a man who dressed in tights and made faces for most of the 80's, and now plays a crippled drug addicted doctor...and is almost the same age as my father.

I sometimes wonder if the FDA is getting paid off to let these chemicals into the food market, so that the pharmaceutical lobby will have a disease to treat (and charge us for a 'branded' medication) down the line. I wouldn't put it past them.

Aaaack my eyes are hurting and I want to argue with you Wynnie, but I like you so I'm going to bite my tongue. But I have to warn you - I work for the pharma industry. :D

No worries, FG - it wasn't meant as a personal thing. I have a friend who works for the FDA, and we get into it too.

[quote="WynnieGI sometimes wonder if the FDA is getting paid off to let these chemicals into the food market, so that the pharmaceutical lobby will have a disease to treat (and charge us for a 'branded' medication) down the line. I wouldn't put it past them.[/quote]

I can't do large amounts of real sugar b/c it makes me woosy, and I really don't like my food super sweet. I get really irritated when I go shopping for things, see "Low Sugar," get all excited at the prospect of a less sweet food, and then discover that all the mfr has done is add fake sugar! Fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt is a particularly troublesome item to buy. I don't want all that sugar in the real-sugar kind, but I don't want the fake stuff either. Gah! Am I the only one who actually wants some foods to be less sweet?

Meat/chicken for too many reasons to go into
Fish full of mercury
Water (don't be fooled by bottled water, it's not what you think it is)
All sugar
Vegetables/Fruits (poisons in fertilizer, or migrant worker humanitarian issues)
Bread/ starches (Carbs are bad, we've been warned)
Fats

And this could easily reverse the next time the food pyramid is reorganized.

I think if I eat things in moderation, I'll be okay. We all die of something, right? Life without chocolate (sugared or sweetened) would be a sad life.

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It is no measure of mental health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

I do have a question, though; what does "turning into formaldehyde in your system" mean? It sounds bad, yes, but what does that really mean from a physiological standpoint?

Not much, actually. Most sugars and alcohols go through a step in their metabolism in which they are an aldehyde - usually acetaldehyde but sometimes formaldehyde - but those compounds are perfectly natural components in the metabolic cycle and are in turn processed into other compounds that are ultimately eliminated from the body via the kidneys. There's not a bucketful of formaldehyde circulating around your body pickling your organs no matter how much diet soda you drink.